What’s in it for me? (2)

 “By the way, O.J.,” said Africa-Man, “do you know I get some hard copies of Nigerian newspapers, including BusinessDay, right here in Vladivostok?”

“How manage?” I asked.

“Simple: they come by slow boat. Three to four weeks late, but still they give me a fuller feel of things in Nigeria than the online versions. That’s where I read the Mango Tree adverts, by the way. Surprisingly, the online editions have hardly any advertisements.”

“But how come you know so much about multi-level marketing—did you call it MLM?”

“I’ve had my finger in too many pies. You know me, O.J.—or have you forgotten? I’m a jack of all trades. . .”

“ . . . and a master of . . .”
“Who am I to argue? . . .”

“So you’ve tried some MLMs?”

“Yes, and investigated some from a distance. When I was a student in LA there was a company called Holiday Magic. Fantastic promises of paradise on earth. I fell for it. I scrounged together $2,000 . . .”

“A lot of money in those days—like $20,000 today . . .”

“You said it . . . I bought myself the rank of General—or was it a mere Colonel? Then came the hard part—recruiting. I recruited three or four people . . .”

“. . . then you ran out of fools . . .”

“Exactly. All the promises of paradise on earth turned to ashes in my mouth.”

“And you were not alone, I bet.”

“No, I wasn’t. The organizers were laughing all the way to the bank every day, while thousands and thousands lost millions, with no chance of recouping. Complaints got filed. The media started singing. Police and the courts stepped in.”

“I hear they don’t fool around over there.”

“That’s right. The judicial system is tough, and the police are mean.”

“Ah, but I bet you can bribe them.”

“You try bribing them, man, you earn yourself a longer jail term. Holiday Magic was disbanded.”

“Did you get any money back?”

“Not a penny.”

“Was that the end of MLMs?”

“No. Evil never ends in the world, O.J. It only changes form. Like natural matter. No matter is ever lost—at least so we’re told—but only changes form. Pyramid schemes are still going strong in America.”

“Pyramid schemes?”

“That’s what they are. The term MLM was invented to hide the fact that it’s all a pyramid scheme.”

“You lost me. Please explain.”

“Well, each of these schemes is organized on the vertical principle of socio-economic hierarchy which replicates the shape of a pyramid. The mass of the population (the lower class and underclass) wallow in poverty and misery at the base, producing with their labor most of what sustains the society in goods and services. The middle and upper-middle classes sit on the heads of the lower classes and live reasonably comfortably, while a tiny super-rich minority enjoys an affluent and easy life at the top.”

“Sounds like medieval Europe.”

“That’s right. Not much has changed from the medieval pyramid—except for the rhetoric (more promises than provisions) of upward mobility demanded by a modern democratic dispensation. The MLM pyramid usually has five levels, each level named after some social status, professional rank, natural mineral or precious stone.”

“You mean like diamond, gold, chairman, field marshall or professor?”

“Exactly. Some MLMs are crude and brash, with cat-out-of-the-bag names like The Food Chain, Parasites Delight, Dog Eaters Club (in San Francisco’s Chinatown), or Yo Lim Gen (pseudo-Korean for Your Loss is My Gain.) But the most sophisticated of them is eN-Way, nicknamed WII-FM or What’s In It For Me?”

“Sounds more like a digital satellite radio station.”

“It’s an old fashioned 419 scheme that reinvents and renames itself every decade but maintains unchanging its relentless, predatory soul of dog eat dog and mighty crush the weak.”

“I bet the base of their pyramid is Lead.”

“It’s Bamboo. Above it is Iron, followed by Brass, then Silver, then Gold at the top.”

“It must be a long, hard climb from Bamboo to Gold.”

“It requires alchemy, a virtual chemical transformation.”

“I bet the majority never make it.”

“That’s right. They are Bamboozled, and stay that way. That’s why the majority always constitutes the base of any social pyramid.”

“Wouldn’t be a pyramid, otherwise.”

“That’s right.”

“Bamboozled, eh? A fool and his money are soon parted, they say.”

“Yes, but some fools are more fool than others, while some are clever tricksters pretending to be fools.”

“Wolves in sheep’s clothing?”

“That way they dupe the real fools more easily. The fastest fliers attain Gold in five years, which normally takes fifteen to twenty years on average.”

“The charismatic ones, the slick operators, fast talkers and preachers . . .”

“That’s right. They are swimming in money. . . .”

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Onwuchekwa Jemie